1. Technical Field of the Invention
The current description relates to an earth shaping apparatus, and in particular to an earth shaping apparatus capable of producing a leveled ditch.
2. Description of the Related Art
Shaping land for a particular purpose can involve digging or otherwise creating a ditch. The ditch may be used, for example, for irrigation, drainage or marking of boundary lines.
Various ditching devices for creating a ditch exist. For example, a powered ditcher may use a rotating member to remove material from the ditch. Due to the powered nature of the ditcher, the overburden material removed from the ditch may be deposited away from the excavated ditch. Such powered ditchers require moving parts to create the ditch, and these moving are susceptible to breakage, especially in rocky terrains, where hitting a large rock may damage the ditching device.
Another ditching device is a V-ditcher, which comprises a V-shaped implement that is designed to be pulled behind a vehicle such as a tractor and driven into the ground. The V-shape causes material to be pushed out of the ditch. However, unlike the powered ditching devices, which can eject the material from the surrounding ditch, the V-ditcher causes the overburden material to form a berm on either side of the ditch. The berm may be undesirable in various situations. For example, a berm can act as a dam preventing water from entering the ditch, and as such may need to be removed if the ditch is to be used for drainage. The berm may be removed from the ditch by a leveler or scrapper that can be pulled over the ditch to level the berm. However, this requires passing over the ditch using a second implement, which effectively doubles the amount of work required to create the ditch. Furthermore, the leveler or scrapper will cause material from the berm to also fall back into the excavated ditch.
What is need is an implement that can provide a leveled ditch in a single pass in a wide range of conditions.